Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One thing you can always rely on the coalition to do is to politicise the issue of unauthorised boat arrivals. They don't show any compassion. They don't offer any solutions. They just want to play political games.

I was quite surprised when the previous speaker, Senator Cadell, mentioned former prime minister John Howard. When I hear Mr Howard's name the very first thing that comes to my mind are the untruths that were told about children overboard, the absolute untruths that were told about that. I don't think people forget that. People remember. Once again, that was political game playing by the then Prime Minister to try to win an election.

Then Senator Cadell spoke about us not talking about it. What was that line—let me think—'We don't broadcast on water activities; we don't talk about on water activities.' I heard that from the former coalition government for 10 years. They couldn't tell anybody anything. It was all very hush-hush. And on that side, they have so many people who are trying to create fear and anxiety amongst the public because they think that's what will win them the next federal election.

Senator Cadell referred to Senator Sheldon's 'alleged outrage'. That side are the world's best at confecting outrage, and there's nothing they like better than to confect it when they're talking about unauthorised boat arrivals. There's no principle involved; they're just creating fear to try to win the next election. They refused to disclose or discuss anything when they were in government and they had lines about it: 'We don't discuss on water activities. We don't discuss this. We can't encourage the boats to arrive.' All of a sudden, when they're in opposition, they do a complete turn and are happy for that to be discussed. I think 'hypocritical' is the first word that comes to mind—and the other words are probably unparliamentary, so I won't say them out loud!

You have to think about what the ulterior motive is that that side have, besides the fact they've got no policies to speak of. They feign concern about cost-of-living issues, but there was not one question today about cost-of-living issues. It just astounds me that they can come out all overexcited, trying to make people scared, trying to make out that they we're the saviours of unauthorised boat arrivals—but they weren't. We know there were boat arrivals under the previous government. We know there was an issue in Queensland very similar to what happened in Western Australia, but there is a convenient memory lapse on that side! They just like to perpetuate untruths for political pointscoring because it's their default position. They'll use all kinds of weasel words to try and create the impression that we've had some kind of departure on border security policy, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Labor remain committed to Operation Sovereign Borders; I don't know how many times we have to say it. We remain committed to the policy that people who arrive in Australia by unauthorised boat will never settle here and will have to seek third-country resettlement options. And, whatever tall tales those opposite try and tell the Australian people about the funding arrangements for border security, the fact is that we have increased funding by $470 million over the forward estimates; that has been proved. If you don't accept the government's word on any of this, you can listen to the words of the head of the Australian Border Force:

Border Force funding is currently the highest it's been since its establishment in 2015, and in the last year the ABF has received additional funding totalling hundreds of millions of dollars, to support maritime and land-based operations.

It's completely irresponsible and disingenuous of the opposition—and that includes Mr Dutton in the other place—to try and politicise this issue. If they think that this line of attack serves anyone's interests— (Time expired)